Haunted Memories of Past Misfortunes
by CtrlTHaT
Summary: Erm...I am physically incapable of writing descent stories and less so of writing happy ones. Post-Falls. Moriarty didn't call of his Thugs. Sherlock doesn't know how to cope when he loses everything, including 221B. I don't understand the rating system 'cause I'm cool like that but I'll go T to be safe. Spoiler: I'd put this under Hurt/comfort but it's missing a vital part of duo


He'd been dead before, but that was the first time Sherlock Holmes had died. Caught between the abyss that waited in his dreams and the sardonic cackling of life beyond the wallpaper of 221B, the man lay catatonic, an endless stream of steady salty torrents cascading down the side of his face.

The tears were silver wisps of memory, sliding from his mind, following the contours of his face until they either sank in to his pores or fell to the carpet against his face, memories against his pale skin and sunken cheeks.

Without Moriarty to call them off, the Marksmen were left orderless and uncontrolled; Madmen without a Madman to coordinate them. Everyone Sherlock _loved_ was-

"Mr Holmes, it's time to go." A voice called from the doorway behind him to no response. "Mr Holmes…Mr Holmes I'm sorry but the new Land Lord don't wan'choo here…what wif the state you'se left it in wif the previous Land Lady now does 'e?"

_Previous Land Lady…_  
The words echoed through his ears and out his eyes in graceful tears that fell to the carpet. _Emotions are terrible. Emotions are a curse that weakens the mind. Unnecessary pain, easily dealt with._

"…_Easily dealt with._" Sherlock mumbled to himself as the man excused himself with a promise to return with the Realtor.

It had been three weeks to the day since Sherlock homes had killed himself atop St Barts hospital. It'd been two weeks, six days since Mrs Hudson had been hit by the car. Two weeks five days since LeStrade walked into that BnE*.

"Sherlock?" a familiar voice echoed from the kitchen. "Sherlock have you eaten?"

The familiarity of the question sprung him to action. Workmen down stairs, realtor at the truck…

"John?" Sherlock mumbled, silently chastising himself with the myriad of insufficiencies his response incurred. "John, please don't leave me?"

"This is what you do Sherlock? The people _you_ love are dead. You lay on the floor hour after hour, waiting. Cowards wait Sherlock. Cowards _feel_." John's words crippled Sherlock. Feeling his words crash around him he sunk against the back to the chair he hadn't realised he was holding. _John's chair_.

"You cannot be here John…the dead stay dead!"

"Do they Sherlock? Do they really?"

"John…"

"If you'd stayed dead, if you'd actually _died_, Sherlock, Mrs Hudson wouldn't have been hit, would she? LeStrade wouldn't have been stabbed and I-"

"John please…don't" Sherlock pleaded.

"Begging Sherlock?" John laughed to himself, a merciless glint shimmering in his eye. "The weak beg, Sherlock. The weak know nothing else."

"John," the broken man mumbled, his voice breaking with the syllable.

"you, the _Great Sherlock Holmes_, are weak."

The world halted for the two men standing in the living room of 221B Baker Street, London for a few seconds too long.

"_Boring._" John sang, his voice changing but face remaining that steeled mask of pleasure. "You're boring Sherlock." To say that Sherlock barely noticed the accent change is untrue, he's noticed though he'd not acknowledged it. "You're so _boring _Sherlock."

"John…" Sherlock cried, crumpling the floor under the stare of Moriarty's eyes set in a merciless visage on his best friends face.

"Sherlock?" A voice called from behind him. He didn't turn.

"Sherlock!"

"Sherlock!?"

"Sherlock?"

"Sherlock!" That familiar pain called again as flashed from St Bart's flashed behind his eye lids.

"John." He mumbled into his enveloped arms. "John, help me."

Glancing up they stood around him, their eyes a dark shadow and face a cruel mask.

"No."

Ten minutes later a realtor entered 221B to an unexpected site.

Sherlock was standing in the middle of the room facing the window, hands tucked comfortably behind his back and chin set confidently against the sun entering the room.

"Mr Holmes?"

No reply.

"Mr Holmes."

Nothing.

"_Mr_ Holmes we need you to leave the premises immediately. You no longer live here."

"I wonder if you could help me." Sherlock began as though the man had never spoken. "I highly doubt you could help even yourself, given the state of your marriage but you could answer a simple question for me I suppose."

"Shoot away." The Realtor replied with a frustrated, exasperated and frankly terrifyingly natural sigh.

"Where am I and who is this, _John Watson?_ Whose name is on this cane?" He asked confused, turning to face the Realtor with blank eyes and stiffened jaw, cane perched delicately in his fingertips.


End file.
